Defending the Premises

Context:

This post started as a response to a comment I got on my previous Post. I ended up writing a lot in response to the four questions I was given. I thought that I might as well go all the way and defend all the important premises.

1. What do you mean when you say God?

When discussing about theology it’s very important to first define what God is because different people have different conceptions of what God is.

For this argument I want it to include as many theists as possible. So, the broader and more inclusive the definition (while also being consistent with the argument) the better. I think at base, most if not all theists would agree that God would be some sort of mind. If you consider yourself a theist but don’t think God is some sort of mind, then I don’t think you have an interesting sort of theism worth debating over. Bit harsh but I think its important.

We can go into whether this God needs all power, or just sufficient power, or whether this God needs to be loving, but I think regardless of your stances on these issues the argument applies.

2. Why if theism is true then at least one of those creations are true? I do not understand how it implies that at all. You should elaborate why you think that.

The negation of ‘thing’ would equal nothing, or in other words not a thing/no thing. A thing and its negation are exhaustive. Theists already believe in God, so they believe that a distinct kind of thing already exists. So, God would also technically be part of that exhaustive category, since he can be considered a thing. So, from there we have our 3 options, if it’s a thing then creation comes out of or is made out of other things, in other words it comes out of material. If it’s not a thing (negation) then there’s nothing which creation comes out of. And if it comes out of God, then it still comes out of a thing, but a divine thing. Necessarily if you posit, say X created the universe, then you’ve already satisfied one of the conditions because the category of thing is so broad. Even if you don’t posit anything you’ve still satisfied one of the conditions. That being the negation of a thing (nothing). So however you go about it you end up with those options.

I think you could base this further on whether the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM) holds, and you might reject that. However, I don’t reject LEM and would rather just take it as axiomatic. Even if you don’t hold the LEM, I don’t see another option outside of a thing and its negation.

3. When saying that something can’t come out of nothing, what do you mean? If you mean that the cause of something can not be nothing, I definitely agree, but I don’t think that is what theologians mean when they advocate for creation ex-nihilo. What they mean is more similar to something appearing out of nowhere, like appearing out of thin air. It doesn’t mean that the thing has no cause. God would be the cause for the existence of such a thing. Anyway, I think you should explain either way why creation ex-nihilo is false.

What do I mean by this phrase: Something can’t come from nothing?

I think it’s helpful to distinguish two types of nothing. There’s an equivocation that some theists make when using the term ‘nothing’ which is counter to what they usually want to show.

For example, this sentence ’Nothing is in the Box’ can be read, broadly speaking in two ways:

1.    The box is empty.

2.    The Box has inside it <a> ‘nothing’.

You might think this is a silly distinction, of course the second way of reading it is wrong as it attributes thingness to ‘nothing’. The second reading treats ‘nothing’ as an object that is inside the box. This would be completely counter to what ‘nothing’ should be understood as. It should be understood as the negation of a thing. Nevertheless, this distinction is important as this confusion sometimes comes up with some of the phrases I use. For example, “something can come from nothing” or “creation out of nothing”. The best way to read ‘nothing’ is as ‘no thing’. Maybe a more appropriate phrase is “from nothing, nothing comes” (ex nihilo, nihil fit or ENNF for short).

Now let’s think about this distinction and apply it to the phrases and I use. when I say, “something can come from nothing”, it would be nonsensical to read it like this: “From this black void of nothing something comes out of it”. Nothing isn’t a thing. There isn’t anything there for something to come out of or come from. So, it’s clearly mistaken as it misunderstands the term nothing. The way I think we should read the phrase is by saying this: There is no thing and then there is something, with no reason, no cause, out of thin air as the questioner puts it. This is how I think you should understand the phrase. With this idea in mind, if there were truly no things, no humans, no universe, no atoms, no quantum fluctuations, nothing, then it would just continue that there is nothing. Hence the phrase from nothing, nothing comes. You could also think of it like this, if there are no things, then well there just are no things, that’s it. If there’s no force (nothing) acting on a ball, then it remains stationary. It remains as if there was nothing acting on it.

Why would God creating ex-nihilo violate ENNF?

When answering this question, it isn’t enough to just say God is the cause of the universe. What we need to answer is <how> God created the universe, which is the main question from the beginning. If all theists and theologians mean by ex-nihilo creation is that God is the cause of the universe, then they aren’t answering the question of <how> God creates. It’s a bit difficult sometimes to understand what theologians mean by ex-nihilo. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to me, other times it really does seem like they are saying God creates out of nothing. And sometimes creatio ex-nihilo sounds like creation in some sense comes from God or out of God. I’ll it that I am not that knowledgable when it comes to theology when compared to philosophy but what I can do is give my understanding and why we might think of it in this way.

If we go back to understanding why there are 3 creation options in the first place, we can see that creatio ex-nihilo, ex-materia and ex-deo all correspond with nothing, something, and a divine thing (God). We can think about ex-nihilo creation as, God making the universe out of nothing. If we go back again to the distinctions I made, this does not mean that God put his hand inside some black void called nothing and out comes the universe. Again, the correct way to read this would be to say God did not use anything in making the universe. While the first reading is nonsensical because it misunderstands ‘nothing’, the latter reading violates ENNF. This is because, if God used no things, then you would still have no things made at the end. It would be like saying a builder built a house with no building materials. Similarly, we could ask this question: How did the builder make the house? With nothing.

An objection someone can make is to say that God is omnipotent so he can do anything including ex-nihilo creation. This line of reasoning is mistaken and might implicitly beg the question. Yes, you can say God can do anything, but <anything> only includes logically or maybe metaphysically possible things. Omnipotence does not include impossible things. So, you might say God cannot sin because that is metaphysically impossible, or God cannot cause a contradiction because again that is metaphysically impossible, but also logically impossible, God him self is also not paradoxically omnipotent such that he becomes a contradiction. Adding to that list, Gods omnipotence can not violate ENNF as it is not possible.

There is another point I can make on ENNF about considering how the argument would work if we did not hold to this principle. But I will mention this later as it will make more sense after some more context.

4. What do you mean here by superfluous exactly?

Another word you could use is unnecessary. The reason he becomes unnecessary is given our current epistemic standing and given no additional assumptions we would have no reason to posit God. This is because natural causes would be sufficient in explaining the existence of the universe. God doesn’t do anything to add to the world view. All the explanatory data can be ed for by only appealing to natural material creation and causes. As an example, you can think of Superman lifting a truck and me being there also lifting that truck together with Superman. There is no point in me being there. My “help” in lifting the truck adds nothing since superman is sufficient enough to lift the truck on his own. Thus my “help” becomes superfluous. We can ask this question: What explains the truck being suspended in the air like that? The answer should only appeal to Superman. Appealing to both me and Superman is superfluous and thus a worse explanation.

While ex-materia creation is sufficient to explain the existence of the universe it’s still true that God could exist just chilling doing nothing. However, this thought should be unacceptable to theists. Why? Like I said before from an epistemic standpoint we lose justification to posit Gods existence as he becomes superfluous.

The line of reasoning I put forth assumes that creatio ex-materia can actually be sufficient in fully explaining the existence of the universe on its own, without having God moulding the universe from some sort of primordial matter. We can challenge this assumption by asking some questions: Why assume that ex-materia creation is enough? Also why assume that there isn’t an independent reason a theist could give to suppose both God and God creating ex-materia is required?

What are some ways to answer these challenges?

When you are thinking of candidate explanation for how the universe came about, I think it is possible to easily come up with naturalistic hypothesis. In fact, we have several scientific cosmological explanations, and we can even look at what ancient myths say about cosmology too, since we don’t need to actually commit to a specific naturalistic view and say which one is true. All we need to say is that it is possible and that it is a better view comparatively. Like I mentioned above one way you might have a better view is if you don’t posit anything superfluous. This would make your view simpler (in the technical sense) and having a simper view would be better as you would have justification for entity’s you posit. You are better off holding to more scientific views then an ancient myth of course. But the point is that the view you do hold is possible and better than the rest. If a better view exists, then you may have to revise your view, give it up or remain agnostic on the issue.

If you think ex-materia creation is possible, then why assume God moulded primordial matter into the universe instead of a sufficient naturalistic explanation that is also compatible with ex-materia creation. A sufficient naturalistic explanation is enough to explain what we need.

This worry isn’t just a worry for panentheism but all theists in general. If we can explain everything without appeals to God, then why assume God in the first place. If regular theists have ways to defend against this view of God being superfluous, then it would be wise for them not to open them self back up to this attack by accepting certain positions.

Could theists still believe in ex-materia creation without making God superfluous?

I think yes. There are definitely moves a theist could make to put down this objection, I just personally find these objections questionable, but a theist might not agree with the objections I give. However, like I said in my original post, premise 6 (If creatio ex-materia is true, then God is superfluous) is the premise I would attack. Out of all the premises this would be the easiest to defend from a theist’s perspective.

As an example, you could respond by saying, in a theistic world view there would be data points that would require the existence of God. So, you might think fine-tuning, or the existence of consciousness is something that no matter what God would be the only thing that can explain said data. If we go back to our example, it would be like having some sort of independent reason for thinking why Superman alone could not lift the truck. Perhaps there is kryptonite present so given I am strong enough my help ceases to be superfluous.

You might think what the point of all this is. If theists have ways to reject premise 6, and I find that those objections can work from theists point if view, then why think the argument is good? First, I think different theist are going to find different objections plausible and others less plausible. What I think this argument is good for is highlighting areas or premises a theist might want to avoid, while also highlighting other paths a theist can take. And of course, one of those avenues a theist could take is panentheism.

Now that we have some context on what I mean by superfluous I can bring up my final point on ENNF. I’ll consider what might follow if this principle could be sometimes false. The worry that befalls a theist if they posit ex-materia creation might also befall the theist that rejects ENNF. God would become superfluous. If we say that something can come from nothing then, why assume God? Since we could just as easily say that the universe came from nothing. If the theist can violate ENNF then perhaps the non-theist is also open to this idea and can use it to explain the universe while also removing the middleman (God). I think it would still be unreasonable to assume the whole universe has no things explaining its existence. But we might for example think the initial stages have nothing to explain why it is there.